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A great way of adding a new dimension to painting

When The Early Learning Centre recently held a sale offering 50% off many of their arts & crafts products I took the chance to stock up on and diversify 22 month old Freddy's art equipment. One of the items I bought was this Gold Glitter paint, that was on sale for only 88p for 170ml as opposed to the standard price of £1.75. My main reason for buying this particular paint is that I felt it would add a new dimension to paintings and would be good for jazzing up home made gifts and cards.

The paint itself is supplied in a semi-opaque squeezy bottle that looks similar to a washing up liquid bottle and allows you to see just how much sparkly paint remains. The flip top lid is easy to open to reveal the small opening through which the paint can be accurately dispensed. On squeezing the open bottle the paint pours easily into a pot ready for painting. I find the consistency of the paint is a little thick, certainly thicker than the standard ready mixed paints but still workable. The flip lid opens and closes easily which prevents the paint from drying out, but does feel a little flimsy.

The paint is slightly thicker than the standard Ready Mix Paint, but still transfers easily from the pot to brush and then on to paper. The glitter payload is very high, meaning only a very small amount goes a long way. The actual paint is transparent meaning it can be painted over or blended with other colours and it dries in about the same timeframe as the other paints in the range. One slight problem we've had with this paint is that the glitter is a real pain to wash out of the brush and even though I've thought I've removed every trace some stray glitter makes it's way into the next painting.

So far we've used this paint in a couple of projects, a painted face mask and a paint butterfly (where you fold a sheet of paper in half, open it up, paint splodges of colour on one half, then re-fold the paper, press and push the paint and open it up to reveal a beautiful butterfly) and we were very impressed with the results. With the butterfly we only used some very tiny blobs of the glitter paint (along with other colours) and it spread throughout the design to give a beautiful effect that glints as it catches the light. We also used this paint to bling up a paper mask that we had painted and again it was very effective.

Personally I think this paint is brilliant, it really does add another dimension to art work and is fantastic for children who enjoy the concept of glitter. We have used another brand of glitter paint in the past (Wilkinsons) which had a far lower glitter payload and looks very wishy-washy when compared to this. I really can't recommend the Early Learning Centre Gold Glitter Paint enough, the bottle may be smaller than the standard paints and it may cost more, but as you would only be using it for highlighting rather than covering large areas and it spreads well meaning a bottle will last for ages. So I'm giving this paint a hearty five stars out of five and recommending it as an addition to any child's art and craft box along with the red and silver versions.